Lilly looked askance at the man now lounging with apparent indolence on the settee, though the set of his jaw and the jewel hardness in his sapphire-hued eyes left no doubt of his true feelings.
She made one last attempt to change the course of her task, indeed, the course of her life . . . at least for the foreseeable future. “And is Agent McShane agreeable to this arrangement?” she asked.
William’s calm gaze flickered over the younger man. “McShane is a professional, Miss Long,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. “He accepts his obligations and gives this agency his best.” Though he was speaking to her, she could not shake the notion that his words were directed to her new partner as well.
Lilly sighed. Disappointment, anger, and frustration vied for supremacy. Clearly, neither she nor McShane had a choice in the matter, and to argue it further would only make her appear contrary and disagreeable. As she had with her first assignment, she would accept the situation, do her best, and hope that soon she would be trusted to go it alone.
With a lift of her chin, she said, “So we go to New Orleans.” The statement told her employer that she had resigned herself to her fate and was ready to hear the details of the operation.
“Yes, actually, Miss Long, I believe you will embrace the case once you hear about it,” William told her, stepping from behind the desk and handing each of them a copy of the journal they were given at the beginning of each case. The book held the name of the client, the situation, and the agency’s ideas for following through. As per Pinkerton protocol, the persons seeking help would not be introduced to the agents or have any idea how the help they sought might come about.
“If indeed there is a crime involved, it is against a woman, so I know you’ll derive a great deal of satisfaction from investigating it,” William said to Lilly.
“A brief overview of what you’ll find in the journal is this: Just days ago, we received a special-delivery letter from one Mrs. Etienne Fontenot, whose name is LaRee . . . LaRee Fontenot. She and the legitimacy of her concern have been confirmed by her long-time attorney, Mr. Armand DeMille.”
William looked from Lilly to McShane. “Mrs. Fontenot believes that her grandson’s widow, Patricia Ducharme, has been wrongly committed to an insane asylum by her new husband, Henri.”
Lilly’s irritation at being paired with Cade faded as she gave her attention to William’s tale. “Are you saying she believes there is nothing wrong with her granddaughter-in-law?” Lilly asked.
“That is exactly what she believes.”
“Why?” The question came from Cade, who, like Lilly, seemed to have lost his animosity as his interest in the case grew.
“Mrs. Fontenot is convinced that Patricia’s new husband’s, Dr. Henri Ducharme’s, true purpose is to gain control of the family fortune, which, according to Mr. DeMille, is extensive and which all the Fontenot males have gone to great lengths to keep safe for future generations.”
“I don’t understand,” Lilly said. “Wouldn’t it pass down to the remaining heirs?”
“Indeed. Louisiana operates under the Napoleonic Code, which means that the closest male relative handles the business and monetary affairs of their womenfolk, who are considered little more than chattel to their fathers and husbands.”
Lilly felt herself bristling. Once again, a male-dominated world sought to keep the fairer sex under its thumb. No doubt they felt that feeble female brains were incapable of comprehending, much less dealing with, anything beyond regular feminine pursuits.
“I see you take umbrage at that notion, Miss Long, as I suspected you would,” William said with a nod and a slight smile. “As you know, social injustice is one thing that infuriates my father, so he was immediately drawn to this case. It’s also common knowledge that he has strong beliefs in a woman’s capabilities, or he would not hire female operatives.
“But I digress. When LaRee Fontenot’s husband, Etienne, suffered a stroke at a relatively young age, he began to consider ways to insure the money he’d amassed stayed within the family. With Mr. DeMille’s legal advice, Etienne transferred all his business holdings, as well as a house on Rampart Street and a plantation called River Run, to his son, Grayson, in whose capabilities he had complete trust. All this before his death.
“By all accounts, LaRee Fontenot was quite a lovely woman in her youth, and Etienne feared that after his death she would fall for some unscrupulous ne’er-do-well, who would take control of the family fortune.”
“Let me see if I understand,” Cade said. “Etienne hoped that by giving everything to his son before his own death, he could avoid the possibility of his family losing everything he’d worked so hard to gain, should his wife marry unwisely after he died.”
“Exactly,” William said, nodding. “He knew Grayson would be generous and fair in providing for his womenfolk, yet they would have no money of their own.”
“It doesn’t sound as if Etienne had much faith in his wife’s ability to choose a suitable husband,” Lilly said.
William smiled and shrugged. “In any case, LaRee Fontenot never remarried. According to DeMille, the arrangement worked well, and the same agreement was set up between Grayson and his son, Garrett, who lost no time expanding the family holdings—timber in this case—into Arkansas, where he made his home most of the year.
“Garrett was unmarried when his father passed away, and on a visit to his grandmother in New Orleans, he met and fell in love with Patricia Galloway. After they married, they went back to Arkansas to make their home.”
“Is this the same Patricia who is now in the insane asylum?” Lilly queried.
“The same,” William corroborated. “Garrett and Patricia had two daughters, Cassandra and Suzannah. He died four years ago with no son to inherit. Like his father, he felt that some women are as intelligent and business savvy as men, since his grandmother had regularly and successfully interjected her thoughts and ideas into the running of the various family endeavors.”
“You said his grandmother had interjected her thoughts and ideas,” Cade said. “Why isn’t she still?”
“We’re getting there,” William said. “Bear with me.”
“As a resident of Arkansas, Garrett was not bound by Louisiana law. In accordance with the Married Women’s Property Act, which admittedly is haphazardly enforced, depending on who sits in the seat of power, Patricia became heir to everything the male Fontenots had amassed from Etienne’s time until the present.”
“Ah,” Cade said with a nod. “And it was Patricia, not LaRee, who fell for the unscrupulous man, this Henri Ducharme.”
“It appears so, yes,” William told them.
“If Patricia and her daughters lived in Arkansas, how did she meet Ducharme and lose control?” Lilly asked.
“She was lonely in Arkansas without her husband, and she and her girls had moved in with Mrs. Fontenot. She and Henri met soon afterward. To the dismay of the entire family, they were married as soon as her year of mourning ended.”
“You say that Ducharme is a doctor, and yet Mrs. Fontenot doubts his diagnosis in Patricia’s case,” Cade said. “Why?”
“Yes, Cassandra, the older daughter, confided to Mrs. Fontenot that her mother was mere months into her new marriage when she began to suspect she’d made a dreadful mistake and had put the family fortune in her new husband’s grasping hands—Mrs. Fontenot’s words, not mine,” William clarified.
“I can certainly relate to that,” Lilly said in a voice laced with bitterness. She ignored the questioning look her partner shot her way.
“According to Cassandra, it appears that her stepfather’s sole intent in life is to spend them into poverty.”
Lilly gave another huff of disgust.
“To further upset the family,” William continued, “within ten months of the marriage, Patricia found herself with child—what is commonly referred to as a ‘change of life baby.’ The confinement was troublesome, and Patricia got little comfort from her husband, who constantly warned th
at something could go wrong because of her age.”
“Job’s comforter,” Cade muttered.
William nodded. “As it happened, something did go wrong. The baby, a boy, was stillborn some eighteen months ago, which sent Patricia into a deep melancholy, from which, Mrs. Fontenot claims, she seemed to be emerging little by little, until she received another blow.”
As Lilly listened, she thought of her own mother’s murder that resulted in the death of the baby she’d been carrying. She wondered if she would always be reminded of their deaths at odd times like this, with nothing but a snippet of conversation bringing back the painful memory.
Cade leaned forward in interest. “What was that?”
“Four months ago, in an effort to cheer her mother, Cassandra urged Patricia to attend a suffragist gathering with her and her sister, Suzannah, who somehow became separated from them in the crush. They looked for her to no avail, and she was located two days later by some hobo in an alley. She had been molested and killed.”
There was an apologetic expression on William’s face as he looked at Lilly, but though her heart gave a lurch of empathetic pain for Patricia Ducharme’s loss and Suzannah’s suffering, she was no shrinking violet to go into a swoon from hearing such brutal truths.
“The murder has not been solved, and the New Orleans police have little hope of ever knowing who committed the crime. Needless to say, this tragedy on top of the loss of her infant son strained Patricia’s emotions to the limit.”
“It would strain anyone’s emotions,” Lilly said.
William nodded. “Henri claimed she was so overcome with grief and anger that she became abusive, striking him on several occasions.
“Mrs. Fontenot admits that Patricia’s emotions seesawed between bouts of depression and something near normalcy, but she never witnessed the”—William referred to the letter in his hand—“ ‘howling, screeching creature hell-bent on physical injury. ’ That last was Henri’s description as Mrs. Fontenot recalls it.
“Ducharme claims he had no recourse but to administer small doses of laudanum. Fearful of making her a fiend, he discontinued the drug after the funeral, at which time Patricia began to alternate between forgetfulness and belligerence. She began to imagine things that were not so and accused him of everything from hiding things to lying to her.”
“The poor thing,” Lilly said, thinking that it certainly sounded as if the woman’s sanity had fled.
“And so he had her committed,” Cade said.
William nodded. “A month after burying Suzannah, Henri committed Patricia to the City Insane Asylum there in New Orleans.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Cade said. “I thought it was for indigents, not the crème de la crème of New Orleans society. I can’t imagine Mrs. Fontenot choosing such a place for a loved one.”
“You’re right, McShane,” William said with a dry smile. “But there is a certain method in her madness, if you’ll pardon the dreadful pun. Henri wanted to put Patricia in a state institution, but Mrs. Fontenot put down her foot and insisted that Patricia be placed in a private home or left in the city until her true mental state could be evaluated by professionals. That way she would be close enough for the family to visit, and”—his smile deepened—“with the Fontenot bank account, Mrs. Fontenot could arrange for special privileges and care for her granddaughter-in-law.”
“I understand the special privileges, but not the other,” Lilly confessed.
“By law—anyone, including policemen, family members, clergy, literally anyone—can leave someone for evaluation at the New Orleans facility for a certain length of time. If they get better, they’re released, but if they don’t, they’re sent to the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson.”
“From what you’ve told us, it seems Dr. Ducharme’s fears are well-founded,” Lilly mused. “Why does Mrs. Fontenot doubt his judgment?”
“She admits she has no proof that Henri is up to anything nefarious,” William told them. “But with Cassandra’s statement about her mother’s concerns over her new husband and Mrs. Fontenot’s own feeling that too many disasters have befallen Patricia since her marriage, she feels she has justification for her suspicions.”
Lilly understood LaRee Fontenot’s intuitive feelings perfectly. She recalled feeling that people were withholding the truth during her previous investigation. She also remembered the feeling of certainty that Cadence McShane was not the person who intended her harm after she’d almost been run down by a buggy, even though her intellect reminded her that he’d been in the area when other dodgy things had taken place.
“Cassandra also believes that her stepfather is somehow responsible for Patricia’s mental state,” William was saying. “She and her great-grandmother fear that Henri will bypass them and send Patricia to an even worse place and that leaving her in an asylum truly will drive her over the edge.”
“So our job,” Cade said, glancing at Lilly, “is to try to disprove the notion of Patricia Ducharme’s insanity?”
“Yes, and to do everything in your power to find out whether or not Dr. Henri Ducharme is the villain Mrs. Fontenot and Cassandra believe he is. And do it as quickly as possible.”
Lilly was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the task set before her and her disgruntled partner, especially since they needed to move without delay. She shot Cade a sharp glance. His dark eyebrows were drawn together in a frown as he looked over the notes he’d been taking.
“Does Mrs. Fontenot know anything at all about Henri’s past?” she asked. “We could use someplace to start looking.”
“The doctor is, by Mrs. Fontenot’s grudging admission, an attractive and charming man, forty-seven years old, and has been married before. She has no idea to whom he was married,” William supplied. “She believes the first wife died.”
“Am I correct in assuming that we will be employed by Mrs. Fontenot at the house on Rampart Street?”
William nodded. “You will be hired as a married couple.”
Cade and Lilly shared a stunned look.
“We’ve arranged things so that it is almost a given that you will be hired.”
Mouth set in a hard line, Cade nodded in compliance. “Who else lives in the house besides Mrs. Fontenot?”
“The doctor, of course, and an array of servants.”
“Cassandra?”
“No,” William said. “She met and married an attorney”—he shuffled the pages of the letter again—“one Preston Easterling, fifteen months after her mother married Ducharme. They live on the family plantation, River Run, a half-day’s trip from New Orleans; however, they are frequent visitors to the house on Rampart Street.”
“Does Mrs. Fontenot’s attorney . . .” Cade paused, searching through his notes for a name.
“Armand DeMille.”
“Yes. Does Mr. DeMille have any input about the family’s finances, or has he discovered any financial shenanigans that can be attributed to Ducharme?” Cade asked.
“DeMille has been in the dark since soon after Cassandra married Preston, and Henri suggested that it made more sense to have all the family affairs handled by someone in the family. He turned over everything to Preston.”
At the seemingly innocuous comment, Cade’s head came up like a hound on the scent of its prey.
“I see you find that interesting, too, McShane,” William said with a nod of approval.
“Very.”
“I want you and Miss Long to become an integral part of that household,” William instructed, looking from one to the other. “You will, of course, interact on some level with all the people we’ve discussed today, though as you know, not even Mrs. Fontenot is to have any idea who you are.”
Agency policy dictated that the clients never meet the operatives working their case. It was a practice that made a lot of sense to Lilly. William’s steady gaze met hers, then moved to Cade. At that moment, Lilly saw Allan Pinkerton’s determination and drive reflected in his son’s eyes.
“Withi
n reason and the law, you are to use every means possible to find out everything you can about Dr. Ducharme. If he is as corrupt as the Fontenot ladies and Mr. DeMille seem to think he is, I want you to nail the scoundrel’s hide to the wall.”
Photo © Paige Richards
Penny Richards sold her first book in 1983 and has written mostly contemporary romances through the years. During a long break from writing, she and her husband owned and operated a bed-and-breakfast and catering business in their renovated 1902 Queen Anne home. Feeling she still had stories to tell, she decided it was time to try a different time period and different genres. She now writes historical mystery and inspirational historical romance. She loves research, learning how to do new things, cooking, yard sales and flea markets, turning someone else’s trash into one-of-a-kind treasures, and working in her yard.
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